Word: zaccaro
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Even though she had substantial assets of her own (her net worth at the time was about $500,000), the banks, she says, would not give her a loan unless her husband co-signed it. The FEC, of course, would not permit Zaccaro to do that, since he was one of the family members she was trying to repay. The only option, she says, was to put some of her property on the block. "We've got to sell fast," she told her husband, alluding to her half-ownership of one building and a half-interest in a mortgage...
...When Zaccaro sought a buyer for her interest in this building, he went to Lerman. They decided a fair market price was $325,000, nearly twice what Lerman and Ferraro had paid for the property five months earlier. (This value estimate was not unreasonable, it turned out, since the building was resold two years later for $375,000.) If they sold the building for $325,000 and paid off the $124,605 mortgage, Ferraro and Lerman would get roughly $200,000. Lerman agreed to pay Ferraro $100,000 in cash for her share. In purchasing her interest, Lerman took over...
...Zaccaro promised Lerman he would buy back Ferraro's share for $100,000. Thus Lerman knew he would get back his cash payment of $100,000. In buying the half-share, Zaccaro would acquire half the mortgage obligation...
...back meant that Zaccaro was indirectly subsidizing his wife's campaign. In effect, she was selling her share of the property to him, with Lerman acting as an intermediary, and then using the proceeds to repay her husband and children. This would not be considered a gift and therefore a violation of election laws unless the value of the property was inflated, exceeding a fair market price at the time she sold her share...
...Ferraro campaign staff points out that Zaccaro could have simply bought his wife's property directly without going through Lerman, but "because of the recent FEC experience it did not occur to him." Again, for such a transaction to be legal it would have to be an arm's-length, market-value deal. In view of Ferraro's whopping profit after just five months, it is not entirely certain that the sale and repurchase met this standard...